Teacher debit card may offer lesson in odd expenses

While most classrooms require a steady supply of crayons, papers and notebooks, Sara Cuaresma has to make sure she's stocked up on liver.

"I use them for experiments," said the biology teacher at Forest Hill High School in West Palm Beach. She says she pays for it herself — just like she often buys pens and paper for her students.

Teachers said they spend anywhere from $250 to $2,500 a year on school supplies, from the basics to the unexpected. They receive yearly stipends from the state averaging $100-$200 to offset some of their costs.

And while Gov. Rick Scott is proposing to issue debit cards to teachers who routinely dip into their pockets, the items they buy might stun him.

"The weirdest thing I bought … I went to Party City and I bought a palm tree," said Briget Nicholson, a teacher at McNab Elementary School in Pompano Beach. She hangs the six-foot tall cardboard tree from the ceiling to promote part of her social studies curriculum — the study of parks. "Children need to learn in an environment that's inspiring … this section is called Park Place," she said.

"I buy a lot of things like toothbrushes, toothpaste, nail brushes and deodorant," said Laura LaPerna, who teaches at McNab and spends about $700 on supplies. She said sometimes students come to school not bathed and in dirty clothes. "I don't think people realize the extent of what goes on."

Cuaresma said she buys a few bottles of rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide and livers from the grocery store for class experiments. "We've been doing this for years. We care for our kids like they were our own," she said.

Though teachers send out classroom supply lists at the beginning of the year, there are children who walk into class empty-handed.

"So you have to buy all that," LaPerna said.

"These are things you need to get through the day ... and these supplies for the kids really adds up," said Mike Dowling, a teacher at Emerald Cove Middle School in Wellington.

When Scott outlined his educational agenda for 2013, he said he wanted the debit cards to be funded by the state, local school districts and private donations but didn't specify how much money he'd put in the cards.

Because of that, some teachers are skeptical.

"If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably too good to be true," LaPerna said.

Nicholson, who spent $2,500 on supplies, said she'd welcome the debit cards. "Anything would be better than nothing … it would be really fantastic to not have to dig into my paycheck."

Dowling, who spent about $1,400 this year on supplies, said it would be "nice to have it" but it'd be even better "if he paid us a decent salary."